


Fated

by Joel7th



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Blood and Injury, Dark Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Spoilers for Season 3, blood transfusion, child!Alucard, child!Hector, hectorcard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23472076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joel7th/pseuds/Joel7th
Summary: What if Alucard and Hector had met when they were children?
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Hector, Alucard/Hector (Castlevania)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 58





	Fated

The boy’s eyes reminded him of the Aegean Sea. Not quite blue, not quite green but a mix of both.

Like seawater under the blazing sun, they were sparkling.

Adrian wished they weren’t. He hated it when there were tears in people’s eyes. Once he had accidentally witnessed his father and mother having a fight. His mother had been having hints of moisture in her eyes, making them crystal-clear and extra-sparkling, before the moisture condensed into droplets of tear to run down her high cheekbones. Adrian had forgotten what his parents had been arguing about; what he _did_ remember was the loud voices and that the sight of Lisa’s tears had caused him so much distress he started wailing with the volume of a little Banshee, which immediately put a damper on their quarrel as they rushed to his side.

In short, Adrian hated tears because tears indicated sorrow and sadness, sometimes anger and frustration, or despair and desolation, none of which was positive emotions.

Adrian knew the boy with fine silver threads for hair and seawater for eyes was definitely sad. He was kneeling on the ground, mindless of the dirt and mud ruining his breeches, in front of the fresh carcass of a black cat. Tears fell freely from his pretty eyes to be absorbed into midnight fur as he ran blunt fingers along the ill-fated feline’s spine. Adrian, too, was sad. He, too, had knelt in the dirt to stroke the dead animal’s fur after he had been but a minute too slow to save the poor thing from its doom under the carriage’s wheels. Now, watching the boy silently grieving for the dead cat from his vantage point in a nearby tree, Alucard felt the hot sting of tears around the rims of his eyes; any moment and his face would be wet.

The silver-haired boy hastily wiped his eyes with his sleeve and reached into the red sash tied around his waist to pull out something. Curious, Adrian blinked away the coming tears and squinted his eyes.

The young dhampir did not know he was about to witness something extraordinary.

It was a pair of coins the silver-haired boy pulled out and laid on his palms. The coins looked old, for they were slightly chipped at the edges and did not reflect much light. With his enhanced vision, Adrian was able to make out the fading patterns on the surfaces of the coins; however, he didn’t recognize them to be any currency used in this region or its neighbors. He silently committed the patterns to his memory for later research and veered his attention back to the boy. His eyes focused and his lips pressed in a straight line, he held a coin in each hand and struck them together, creating blue sparks that entered the cat’s body. Adrian covered his gasp with his hands. A second ago, the cat was still as a rock and now, one of its hind leg was twitching. His father had once showed him that some animals could still twitch their limbs or tails even after death, but he doubted that was the case with this cat, which had been dead for a while. Unlike Adrian, the boy remained calm in the face of such strange phenomenon as he kept striking the coins, producing more sparks to rain down black fur. The poor creature’s limbs started kicking the air with the vigor of a living animal. One particularly hard stroke created a pillar of blue light shooting up the sky before being sucked into the feline’s form. The cat opened its eyes — glowing with an eerie blue — and sat up with a loud meow. The boy’s lips stretched into a grin so wide it threatened to split his face in half when he put away the coins and picked up the reanimated animal, rubbing his cheek into jet-black fur. The cat licked his temple and winded its long tail around his arm.

So awed was Adrian that the young dhampir’s head temporarily went blank about his surroundings, his eyes and mind magnetized to the peculiar pair as they seemed to command all of his attention. There was an audible crack he barely registered before his body experienced a sense of free falling. He let out a startled cry and flailed his arms in an attempt to grab onto something but all he caught was air. Panic spiked in his guts and thankfully, it was what kickstarted his vampire side in order for Adrian’s body to do a backflip right before it hit the ground. The way he landed with a heavy thud definitely didn’t win him any points for grace in the vampire’s book but Adrian couldn’t care less about being graceful if he was sprawling face-down in the soil that reeked of horse poop, so being on his feet and generally unscathed counted as a victory in the young dhampir’s book. With an exhale, he straightened up and lifted his head to a pair of huge, unblinking blue-green eyes. Standing a few feet from Adrian, the silver-haired boy was gawking at him while hugging the black cat to his chest. His shoulders looked stiff and there was a small quiver in his arms if Adrian looked closely. Awkward silence blanketed them like a soaked cloth, vacuuming all the sounds of nature around.

The cat’s yowl ripped the cloth, alerting the boy. He sharply turned his back and started running in the opposite direction, leaving a bewildered Adrian behind. “Hey,” Adrian cried out after him.

No response. The boy kept running like the Devil was hot on his heels, the cat secured in his arms. “Hey,” shouted Adrian again as his feet moved to chase after him. He had very light feet, and if Adrian were a human boy, he would never catch up with him. With his vampire side however, he didn’t even break a sweat before his hand reached out and grabbed the silver-haired boy’s arm, forcing him to stop. “Let go off me!” he cried in Greek, glaring at Adrian with those sparkling eyes. At the same time, the cat bared its fangs and whipped its claws out, its eyes shining like torches and fur bristling. The uncanny resemblance between the boy and his feline had Adrian momentarily stunned before he found his voice. “If I let go off you, you’d immediately sprint,” Adrian said.

The boy jerked his arm but failed to free himself from Adrian’s grip, strong despite his lean, aristocratic figure. Fear flashed in his eyes and his lips trembled. “What do you want with me?” he asked.

_What did he want with him?_

“I...” Adrian trailed off, telling himself the prolonged pause was his rummaging his brain for the Greek lessons he had received at his father’s behest while in fact, it was to buy time for an answer he would not likely get.

“You what?” the boy asked, his brows, also silver, knitting and his eyes narrowing. Adrian could tell he was trying so hard to imitate an adult’s expression because he too had tried to copy his father’s speech and mannerisms a few times; however, given the boy’s round, baby face and watery puppy eyes, it ended up looking comical. Laughter was bubbling in his chest and he coughed into his free hand to suppress it, recalling how his parents had cackled and how hot his face had burnt.

“I... I don’t know,” Adrian stammered, then tightening his hand just in case the boy saw his distraction as an opportunity to get away.

“Ouch, you’re hurting me!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Adrian blushed as he adjusted his grip; monitoring his inhuman strength was a lesson he had yet to master. “I won’t hurt you, I promise,” he timidly assured the boy.

“Your accent, you’re not from around here, are you?”

“I’m not. I’m from... another country. I’m traveling with my father.”

The boy looked visibly relieved at Adrian’s statement and the young dhampir couldn’t fathom why. “Traveling...” he said, almost muttered and dipped his head a notch. “It must be nice. I have never left this town.”

“My father’s work requires him to travel a lot.” Adrian opted for half-truth. “Sometimes he takes me with him so I’ve visited a few towns. It’s nice... I guess.”

The boy raised his head and fixed Adrian a stare. Up close his eyes were like beautiful drops of turquoise on Lisa’s dangling earrings, and Adrian was so taken with them that he wasn’t prepared at all for the accusatory tone when the boy spoke, “What are you? No boy falling from a broken branch can pull a stunt like that and lands on his feet without a scratch.”

“Then what are you?” Adrian echoed, feeling a hot surge of anger in his chest. “No boy can make a dead cat move again by striking two coins together.” He pointed a finger at said black cat, which hissed and attempt to scratch him but was stopped by the boy’s hand on the scruff of its neck. “Not just ‘move’; it’s alive!”

“You saw me?”

“As you saw me!”

“I can’t help it,” the boy said, somewhat deflated. “I was born with that.”

“So was I.”

Neither said a word as they unwittingly participated in a fierce staring contest for several moments. Above their heads, the sun began its daily journey towards the horizon. A gust of wind tousled their hairs, silver briefly mingling with gold.

Caught between the two of them, the cat grew agitated with the stretched silence. Meowing loudly, it whipped its claws out and succeeded in what it had failed a few minutes ago.

“Ouch,” Adrian cried, and in his surprise, he let go off the boy’s arm and looked down at the back of his left hand, where there were three freshly minted slashes. Before they had a chance to bleed, the wounds closed on their own as if by a spell, leaving his skin pristine.

They went back to staring into each other’s eyes but this time, it didn’t last because the boy shattered the silence with his high-pitched tone as he asked, “How did you do that?”

Adrian huffed. “I told you, I was born like that.”

The boy glanced at his forearm, covered by the long sleeve of his gray tunic. “That’s... incredible,” he mumbled, steering his scrutinizing gaze to Adrian’s face. “On closer look, you have yellow eyes, almost the same color as your hair. They’re beautiful.”

Adrian’s eyes widened. “That’s... that’s the first time I’ve heard someone say that. People, mostly children, they often say I’m a freak because I have freak eyes.”

“They say the same about my hair, too. Say I’m cursed and I will turn into a vampire, or I’m already a vampire.”

Adrian couldn’t help his sniggers, recalling the colorful vampires he’d seen in his father’s court. There were a few who didn’t mind his mortal half and had spoken with him on several occasions. Those were the ones he liked. “No vampire can revive a dead cat.”

The boy squinted his eyes, and his arms tightening around the feline defensively. “How do you know?”

“I just know,” Adrian said shrugging. “Do people know you can do that?”

The boy frantically shook his head. “They don’t. If the villagers saw me do it, they would stone me to death or bury me alive. I once saw they did it to a man they called a mage.”

Adrian gaped at him. So that explained his earlier reaction. “I won’t tell anyone what you did,” he assured him.

“You won’t?”

“If you won’t tell what you saw. Pinky promise?”

Adrian held out his little finger. The boy gave him an incredulous look before lifting his hand and with some hesitance, hooking his pinky with Adrian. “Promise,” he said.

Adrian grinned and held out his hand. “I’m Adrian. And you?”

The boy eyed Adrian’s outstretched hand before tentatively shook it. “I’m Hector. And you have very pointy teeth.” He dropped his hand and gestured to his mouth.

Adrian’s insides did a flip. “My teeth and that backflip and the healing, they come as a set,” he explained, hoping the tremble didn’t show much in his voice.

“They’re cute, really...”

Adrian’s cheeks colored. He turned his head to the side to hide his blush.

“... like a cat’s,” Hector finished the sentence with a cheeky grin, holding up the cat in both hands. As if to prove his point, the thing opened its jaws wide.

Knowing his father’s aversion to canines and felines in general, Adrian would love to see his expression when he was told that his fangs, a source of his pride, resembled a cat’s. “It’s getting dark,” he said, changing the subject. “Where’s your home? I can walk you there. It may be dangerous to go alone.”

“A scrawny boy’s escorting me?” Hector chuckled, giving him a once-over.

Adrian straightened his back and puffed out his chest. “I can fight. I’ve training, you know. Fencing, jostling, wrestling—”

“Biting.”

“Hey.”

Hector burst into laughter. His body shook and he dropped the cat, which landed soundlessly on its paws and was looking at him with its round, curious eyes. Still laughing, he bent over to scoop it up. He looked ridiculous, and Adrian couldn’t help joining him.

“My house is that way,” Hector said once he recovered, cursorily wiping his mirthful tears and pointing to the direction he had been running toward. He took a few steps ahead, then looked back to Adrian and gestured for him to follow. “You said you’d walk me home, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

They walked side by side on the dirt road, Adrian’s steps careful and measured to avoid horse poop while Hector’s light and quick. He must have walked this path thousand times before, Adrian thought.

“What are you going to do with the cat?” Adrian asked. “You’re going to keep it?”

Hector’s feet slowed considerably. “I... almost forgot. My mother hates it when I bring animals home. I can’t keep her.”

“Wait, _her_? You can tell?”

Hector raised an eyebrow at him as though Adrian just asked an obvious question. “She told me. She also said her name was Lucee.”

The corner of Adrian’s lips twitched. He stopped in his track to regard Hector with wide eyes. “First time I heard someone can actually speak animal language. That’s... wow.”

“Maybe if you listen closely, you can hear what they want to say too.”

Adrian strode to him and leaned forward, his eyes boring into Lucee’s slit pupils and his face sporting a look of concentration. “No, can’t hear a thing,” Adrian exclaimed, blinking rapidly to ease the strain. The cat meowed. “Except that, which I also don’t know the meaning.”

Hector giggled but made no comment. Scratching behind Lucee’s ear, he resumed his walk, prompting Adrian to follow.

The walked in silence until a small cottage was in sight. Hector pointed at it and said, “That’s my home.”

Adrian did not miss the disappointment in his tone or the way his eyes darkened.

“What are you going to do with Lucee? You said your mother didn’t allow pets.”

“She hates it when I bring a living animal home. She’ll chase them right out with a broom.” Hector looked down at the cat in his arms and stroked her muzzle with his thumb. Lucee purred and licked him. “If she knows I resurrected Lucee, she’ll fling her into the hearth without a second thought.”

The way Hector said it implied such horrendous thing had happened before. It was unlikely the first time he had brought dead animals back to life, given how confident and focused he’d looked when striking the coins. The image of fire engulfing Lucee’s writhing body popped up in Adrian’s mind and raised goosebumps on his skin despite the fading heat of a late summer afternoon. “Give her to me,” he blurted.

Hector looked at him with disbelief. “Give Lucee to you?”

“Yes. You can’t keep her but you can’t give her to your neighbors or anyone in this town, right?”

Hector shook his head ruefully. “They’ll just kill her like my mother. Even if she was alive, black cats are always bad omens.”

“But I can keep her. I’m traveling with my father so we may meet someone who’s willing to take a unique cat, a magician for example.”

When he said this, Adrian was thinking of the vampires in his father’s court, those friendly enough to strike a conversation with him. An undead cat for a vampire, he couldn’t think of a better choice.

A myriad of emotions flashed through Hector’s eyes, too fast for Adrian to catch even one of them. “Alright,” he finally said, the whirlwind of emotions having dried up to leave only determination. “I’ll give Lucee to you. Please take care of her and find her a home.”

He held out his little finger.

“I promise,” Adrian replied and hooked his finger with Hector.

Hector whispered inaudibly into the cat’s ears and put her into Adrian’s waiting arms. To the young dhampir’s surprise, Lucee was benign even though she had been quite hostile towards him. His skin still felt the phantom sting courtesy of her little stunt.

“Can I see her again?” Hector asked. “You said you were traveling with your father. Are you going to leave soon?”

“My father hasn’t finished his business so I’m staying here for a while. I can bring her to you. How about tomorrow afternoon, at that same tree?”

Hector’s face lit up and he nodded fervently.

...

Adrian was incredibly anxious on his way back to Castlevania. He had never brought an animal back home, let alone an undead one, and he had no idea how his father would react. While he might not kill Lucee the way Hector’s mother would, throwing her out into the wild was a possibility. He was prepared to beg if he had to, knowing well neither of his parent could resist their son’s trembling voice and tears. In his arms Lucee was eerily quiet.

It turned out he had been overthinking it because when Dracula saw Lucee, his red eyes sparked with fascination and after a few minutes inquiring about the cat and the boy who had brought her back, his father allowed Adrian to keep her for himself or until he could find someone to adopt her.

...

Adrian had decided to keep Lucee.

When he told Hector a couple ‘dates’ later, he didn’t expect the bone-crushing hug from the shorter boy — it wasn’t because of his boots, Adrian swore. “Thank you,” Hector mumbled into the crook of his neck, tickling Adrian’s skin with his warm minted breath.

He didn’t expect the boy’s tears either when he told Hector this was the last time they could meet and play together because his father’s business had concluded.

His eyes were sparkling like the Aegean Sea under the blazing sun, same as in their first meeting.

Adrian felt a droplet of tear leisurely making its way down his cheek. He closed the distance between them and pulled Hector into his embrace, squishing Lucee between their bodies. The cat, for once, did not voice her protest.

“We’ll meet again, I promise.”

He felt Hector’s nod against his chest.

...

How reliable was a promise made by a ten-year-old?

The answer was such a childish promise was utterly unreliable, because at the time it was made, neither party could foresee what fate had in store for them in the future.

A few years later, once Adrian had been physically mature and deemed suitable to travel on his own, his first destination was that small backwater village in the south of Greece. His heart had been thumping in his chest the whole journey. Anxiety. Anticipation. A not-so-small amount of fear. How had Hector changed in these years? Did he still remember their promise? Would he recognize Adrian although he had changed so much physically? Sitting on his shoulder, Lucee idly picked at the loose thread on his coat.

None of those mattered when he arrived at Hector’s home and was greeted with a large scorched patch where there had been a cottage. It had gone up in flame at the witching hour, some villagers confided to him, God’s wrath no doubt. The father had been a despicable alchemist and his silver-haired son had been an accursed child. A freak. An abomination that even his own mother had loathed. It was good riddance that they had all perished in the fire.

Adrian stopped listening after that.

He left this country at the crack of dawn, vowing to never set foot on this soil again. Cuddled against his chest, Lucee cried all through the journey.

...

Never could Adrian have imagined that he would see his silver-haired, short-lived friend again, and in such dire circumstance.

One hand pressing on his chest, Adrian staggered along the endless corridor of Castlevania, blood from his wound darkening the maroon carpet. It burned and several times he had to stop, panting and putting a hand on the wall to prevent himself from collapsing. The pain was nothing he had felt before — granted, he had not experienced much pain in his life, coddled by his parents as he had been — and this, this contracted his lungs, suffocating him and forcing his heart to pump twice as hard. There was an opaque veil over his eyes and cotton in his ears. The tips of his fingers felt like someone else’s. He couldn’t tell whether it was the blood loss dulling his senses or the thick carpet muffling any footsteps, but he failed to detect another presence in the corridor until he felt a hand on his shoulder together with a soft masculine voice. “Hey, are you alright?” the voice said.

Adrian whipped his body around, the motion making him sick, and clamped his blood-soaked fingers around a slender, warm neck. Blood rushed to his eyes and he bared his fangs in an animalistic hiss.

The eyes staring at him in horror were not quite blue, not quite green but a mix of both. The Aegean Sea of a once-upon-a-time summer, when his mother had been flesh and blood rather than ash and his father had been sane. The face was not what Adrian stored in his memory, occasionally tormenting him in bitter-sweet dreams, but he remembered the fine silver threads which contrasted beautifully with smooth olive skin. His foggy mind conjured a name and Adrian was one step from uttering it before he stopped himself and shook his head. This young man couldn’t be his friend, couldn’t be in Castlevania. The fire had melted even his bones so there had been nothing to bury. His grip loosened nonetheless and the young man sagged against the wall, coughing out his lungs.

Using the last of his strength, Adrian sprang forwards.

His last thought before the coffin lid closed and darkness cocooned him was “what if”.

...

“Meow.”

The sound woke Adrian from his trance and he blinked, the strain of staring listlessly at the fire dancing in the fireplace taking its toll on his eyes. Had done it quite often these days, when he had nothing better to do but hunt, cook, read, rinse and repeat. Day after day, week after week. How long had it been since he drove the stake into his father’s heart? Months? Years? It was difficult — not to mention pointless — to keep track of time when everyday was the same. He closed his eyes, gently messaging his eyelids with the tips of his fingers. They were frigid and numb despite the constant warmth in the closed study. Lucee’s claws raked the leg of his pants, threatening to tear the fabric. She seemed agitated while normally she was content with curling up in front of the fireplace either grooming herself or napping.

In his haste to flee the castle, he’d had no choice but to leave Lucee behind in his room. The guilt had been gnawing at his conscience until he found her after the fight, safe and sound and tucked away with a few more undead animals. Their same glowing blue eyes tracing his every move sent chill down his spine.

_What if..._

He had gotten used to it after a while.

“What is it, Lucee?” he asked. “Stop it. I only have one good pair of pants to last me through autumn.”

It wasn’t true, of course, but it was unlikely the undead cat minded a harmless lie. She was a precious companion these days, the only one he got actually, and she listened to his rambling with a quiet patience he could never ask for in human company. In time he thought he had learned a little of her language and was able to distinguish her sounds of contentment from excitement, distress, worry and the likes.

Right now she sounded impatient.

Lucee tugged the hem of his leg with her fangs and Adrian was sure his pants were going to have a few punctures when he washed them. “Alright, what do you want?” he asked, standing up from his armchair after putting his boots on. His joints popped from staying in one position for too long a period. Lucee did not let go off him until he was out of the study and was greeted by a small horde of reanimated animals — the remaining residents in this castle beside Lucee and himself. Their eyes were immediately on him and they all started making various noises as if they had been waiting for him. Lucee led the horde along the corridor, confidently acting as the head. With a defeated sigh and a pinch of curiosity in his guts, Adrian trailed after them.

When the double door to the entrance opened, Adrian was greeted by a gust of chill wind. The fetid stench of putrefying flesh wafted before his nostrils and Adrian couldn’t help darting his eyes between the twin stakes on either sides of the entrance. The nightgowns he’d put on them had gotten holes in many places, exposing the gray fresh and protruding bones underneath. A crow was perching on a corpse’s shoulder — Sumi probably, but it was hard to tell — and was looking down on him with its beady eyes like it knew what he had done. Adrian picked up a pebble to throw at it, driving it away.

Lucee was biting his boot to get Adrian’s attention. “I just hate crows, alright,” he explained to her while letting her drag him down the few steps to the lawn.

A head of silver hair wasn’t what he expected to see. Stunned, he stood frozen in his spot, his eyes gluing to the body sprawling on the grass.

_What if..._

The animals rushed down the steps to form a tight circle around the body, leaving only Lucee by his side. The cat stood on her hind legs and dug her claws into his knee, her yowls adding to the cacophony of noises from the rest. Head empty save the racing beats of his own heart, excited by the thick, tantalizing scent of blood, Adrian rushed to the body in a flash of red. He put two fingers on the man’s neck, feeling his pulse. Too weak, a flickering candle in the winds that could be extinguished any moment. Carefully, he turned the man over to reveal the face he had encountered in the corridor nearly two years ago. Although the man’s eyes were squeezed shut, Adrian knew their color to be the same as the water of the Aegean Sea.

“Hector...” he murmured, feeling an icy fist closing around his heart as he found the source of the scent screaming at his senses: a huge blotch of crimson on the front of his tattered white shirt. The fabric was still wet when he touched it before ripping the shirt open, revealing a stab wound in Hector’s abdomen. Blood oozed from the gape when he tried moving him, adding to the pool beneath his body. The sight further confirmed his fear: with this amount of blood loss, it was most likely a fatal injury. Memory of the past resurfaced, blending with the present and making his head spin. The only difference now was that he had a body to bury.

Ignoring the cries of the animals surrounding them, Adrian rolled up his sleeve and bit into the radial artery in his wrist. He had never done this before and he wasn’t sure it would work since he was only a half-vampire. The circumstance left him no choice however; it was either do it or watch Hector die. “Come on,” he whispered, one hand cradling Hector’s head and the other squeezing the blood into the crack between his lips. It was no use. The droplets rolled off his lips and down his chin before they were absorbed into the collar of his shirt and few, if any, got into his mouth. Frowning, Adrian glanced at his punctured wound, already healed. With a frustrated grunt, he mercilessly tore open his flesh again but this time, he also got a mouthful of his blood. Lifting Hector’s head, he pressed his lips to Hector’s, using a combination of his tongue and his other hand on his jaws to force his mouth open. A kiss of life, when Adrian reflected on hindsight. The tactic seemed to work and he tilted Hector’s chin for the blood to get down his throat. He willed his nails to elongate and pierce his palm with them, letting some more of his blood drip onto Hector’s wound.

The effect was almost instant: the wound mended itself until the taut skin on Hector’s abdomen was smooth, with only the drying blood to indicate there had been any damage. Hector’s body in his arms stirred, his eyelids fluttered and a soft moan escaped his lips. Adrian breathed a sigh of relief; it appeared whoever above decided to bring Hector back to him for a different purpose than to have him bury his long-lost friend in his lawn.

So, what now?

...

Hector had been sleeping for a day and a half. After giving him a bath and a change of clothes, Adrian had been sitting by his bed since. He kept telling himself that it would not do to have a confused and disoriented Hector wander the castle after waking up alone in a foreign room; however, the truth was studying Hector’s relaxed countenance as he was in deep coma brought a strange sense of peace and calmness to Adrian’s heart. It felt... nice, he admitted; in fact it felt so nice that it gave way for a dark thought to take root in the deepest corner of his mind. What if Hector remained in this state forever, perfectly alive but never opening his eyes again, frozen in time? If he were to stay like that, Adrian would not have to deal with the multitude of inevitable questions like how he had accumulated that many scars on his body; how he had ended up in front of Castlevania after he had left it; or what Adrian would do with him if Hector decided to leave him, or worse, backstabbed him. Sumi and Taka had taught him an invaluable lesson and he wasn’t keen on repeating his mistake in giving his trust too easily. The man lying on the bed wasn’t the innocent boy of the past, and there was no guarantee he wouldn’t turn on Adrian when a chance presented itself to him.

Except there _was_. Hector already had Adrian’s blood in his veins and all he needed to do was snap his neck and the man would be bound to him for as long as Adrian existed. The sirebond would forbid him from betraying Adrian or going against his will. It would even allow Adrian to put Hector in a magic-induced sleep from which he couldn’t wake up without his permission. Total control, wasn’t that what he wanted?

So tempting was such thought that several times Adrian had wrapped his fingers around Hector’s neck. What stopped him from tightening them and getting rid of Hector’s humanity was a timid voice saying “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

That and Lucee’s materializing on the bed to hiss at him with rare menace.

When Hector finally woke, bleary eyes blinking slowly to adjust to the afternoon light basking the room in a golden hue, the first sentence he uttered wasn’t “Where am I?” Angling his head on the pillow, he watched Adrian with calm eyes. “I know you,” he said, voice rusty.

Adrian’s heart skipped a beat. “You do remember me.”

“I recognized you back when we ran into each other at the corridor. Your hair, eyes and fangs were pretty unmistakable. The many portraits in the castle also helped.”

Lucee padded into the room and hopped onto his bed. Hector’s tired eyes lit up and his lips stretched into a smile at her sight. “There’s Lucee, so I can’t have mistaken,” he said, hugging her into his chest and nuzzling his cheek into her coat. “How I missed you, dear. I thought I would never see you again.”

“So you already knew I was Dracula’s son.”

Placing Lucee next to his pillow, Hector nodded and tried to sit up. The lack of pain must have shocked him for his hand went to his abdomen. “How am I still alive?” he asked, his back against the headboard. “I was sure I’d die, unless this is Hell.”

Propping his head on his fist, Adrian arched an eyebrow. “Does this look like Hell to you? And do I look like a demon torturer?”

“It looks like Castlevania and you look like my only friend, so I must be dead and this is Hell.”

“Very sound logic, but I hate to prove you’re wrong. You’re alive. Your wound was healed by my blood.”

To simply say Hector was shocked was an understatement because the man looked like he was about to hyperventilate. Worried that he might, Adrian abandoned his chair to stand next to his bed. “No, no, no. I can’t be a vampire. I don’t want to become a vampire. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in that wretched, despicable existence!”

Something dark twisted Adrian’s insides. He yanked Hector’s wrist, ignoring his cry of surprise — and possibly pain, and put his hand under the sunlight pouring in through the open window. “If you were a vampire, you’d be a living torch now.”

His harsh tone seemed to calm Hector down visibly. Adrian released his hand and it dropped bonelessly onto the mattress. The human covered his face with both hands, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice muffled. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was... overreacting.”

“You hate vampires,” Adrian stated matter-of-factly. “Why worked for them?”

“Maybe... not all of them. You saved my life. You were nice to me and befriended me when no one would. Lord Dracula treated me with kindness and respect even though not all his words were truth.”

“Just say he lied to you. Is that why you left his side? Don’t give me that look. I know you were one of his Devil Forgemasters. He left quite a few notes on you two.”

“I suppose I owe you that much after you saved me from death.”

Lucee draped herself across his laps and yawned. Immediately Hector’s hand came to rest on her back.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Adrian replied, sitting down. Hector scooted further into the bed, either to make room for him or to avoid contact with him Adrian couldn’t tell. “Though I’d like to hear your story. I have all afternoon.”

“Alright.”

His hand gently stroking Lucee’s fur along her spine, Hector began his story, starting with how Dracula had found him (Adrian suspected his father had taken notice of Hector since he brought Lucee home) and convinced him, how Carmilla had taken advantage of him and turned on him, how he had fallen for Lenore’s deception and become her pet — their pet — until Isaac’s attack on the castle, how he had been used as Lenore’s meat shield and fallen through a portal.

“In the end I didn’t know whether it was Isaac’s will or mine that caused the distance mirror to open a portal to Castlevania,” he concluded. “Perhaps a combination of both. Perhaps deep down we both wanted to go back to that simpler, happier time.”

Adrian had listened with utmost silence, not once interrupting him. Beneath his calm facade, however, emotions were bubbling like molten lava, ready to erupt. Anger, that was the most prominent. Anger at those vile sisters for having used Hector and debased him. He should go and kill them, no, he _wanted_ to kill them, if they hadn’t died already. Not just kill them, he wanted them to suffer. Had them impaled on the stakes so that at sunrise, they would burn slowly, the fire starting with their toes and going all the way to their heads. And then anger at Hector for having left the castle; had he stayed, the two of them could have reunited much earlier, before they were screwed up by unseen forces beyond their control. Anger for his naivety and trusting nature, for his hunger for companionship and affection leading to his downfall. It mirrored his own and for that, Adrian felt the hottest rage for himself.

He took in a deep breath, pressing his tumultuous emotions down to reflect on later; now was not the time. “You spoke about the slave ring. I’m afraid that may pose a problem.”

Hector raised his left hand and showed Adrian a thin band of red and black on his ring finger. “I haven’t felt any pain since I woke up,” he said, eying the thing with clear detest. “Not even a tingle. If I try taking it off...”

“Don’t!”

It was too late. With a look of determination, Hector hooked a shaking finger under the band and slid it off in one swift movement. Adrian’s breath hitched and the dhampir braced himself for a bloodcurdling scream. Nevertheless, all that came was Hector’s laughter, bordering on hysteria.

As he laughed like a madman, tears streamed down his face.

Two pools of sparkling seawater, framed by rings of blood.

Before Adrian could think it through, his hand went to Hector’s face and his thumb wiped away his tears. He ceased his laughter to stare at Adrian with haunting red-rimmed eyes. Silence brewed between them as he closed his eyes, tilted his head and rubbed his cheek on Adrian’s palm.

Kind of like a cat, the dhampir mused. All of sudden, alarm rang in his head. He withdrew his hand with an abruptness that seemed cruel even to himself. He turned his gaze to his fingers tightly clutching the sheet so as to avoid Hector’s hurtful look.

“Maybe its magic in my veins has bled out with my blood,” Hector explained in an attempt to clear the awkward air between them. “Maybe it’s a useless thing once Lenore and the rest are dead. Isaac wouldn’t have left any of them alive, provided they hadn’t killed him first.”

There was a glint in his eyes when he said it, which disappeared so quickly it might have been a trick of light. “He wouldn’t have left me alive either, since he came to kill me. Punishment for the turncoat. I guess I still have a bit of luck in me.” He laughed mirthlessly.

“Yes, enough luck to not have your finger, or entire hand, amputated to get rid of that ring.”

“I would have gladly given up my hand or even my arm to be free from its magic.”

Adrian didn’t doubt it. “What is your plan from now on?”

“I don’t have a plan, really,” Hector replied, suddenly realizing he still had Lucee on his laps and trying to pet her as an apology. “I was relentless finding a loophole in the ring’s mechanism that I didn’t stop to think about what to do if I actually got out of it alive.”

“Then stay here.”

The way he said it, short and crisp like a command, made it sound final. Perhaps it was. Adrian wouldn’t lie to himself by denying that he would let Hector go if the man wanted to leave.

“You mean it?”

“You have nowhere to go, don’t you? Then stay. The castle is large enough for two souls. You can have the entire east wing to yourself. That’s where your forge resides, isn’t it? Or you would like to consider it?”

That was a lie. A common strategy to lower someone’s guard by giving them the illusion of a choice. Would the vampire Lenore have won him if she had given Hector a choice before sliding the ring onto his finger, Adrian wondered. Or even before that, if Carmilla had decided on another approach than beating him to a pulp...

“I... would like to think about it.”

“Fine,” Adrian concluded, standing up. “You can join me for dinner at the kitchen if you want. I trust you know the way around already.”

As he was about to get out of the room, Adrian’s hand was caught in a callused one. Hector gazed up at him with the kind of eyes that had always churned his insides during a particular warm dream, long before Adrian discovered what it meant. “Thank you, Adrian,” he said.

“It’s Alucard now.”

Leaving Hector to decipher its meaning, he strode to the door and closed it behind his back.

_End_


End file.
